Köhler-Geib proposes AI Airbus to secure digital sovereignty
Deutsche Bundesbank Executive Board Member Fritzi Köhler-Geib called for an industrial consortium to develop frontier AI models and photonic chips. Speaking at a roundtable in Brussels, she advocated pooled public procurement to secure European digital sovereignty.
From photonic chips to frontier models
Köhler-Geib urged European policymakers to treat artificial intelligence as part of an interdependent ecosystem spanning semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, robotics, and quantum computing.
Referring to a joint initiative with Claudia Plattner and Kristina Sinemus comprising 37 measures, she stressed the immediate commercial rollout of photonic chips.
These optical semiconductors offer high energy efficiency for data centers hosting frontier AI.
To broaden the IT market, Köhler-Geib proposed an industrial consortium modeled on Airbus to advance an open-source model alongside Mistral, supported by pooled public procurement and private venture capital.
Lessons from the aviation playbook
European institutions are deploying procurement to foster domestic capacity, including Bundesbank tenders for EU-native cloud services.
“Cybersecurity based on high-performance AI models is a matter of survival for Europe,” Köhler-Geib said, noting risks from foreign tech dominance.
Drawing parallels to the Airbus project, she cited discussions with Jean-Claude Trichet on leaders removing roadblocks, alongside Enrico Letta's proposed savings union.
Airbus nostalgia will not build frontier AI
Central bankers rightly identify foreign tech dependencies as an operational risk.
Yet invoking sixty-year-old aerospace alliances overlooks how swiftly artificial intelligence evolves compared to physical manufacturing.
Without unified capital markets, public procurement alone will not spawn competitive European models.